James Abraham, Jos
The Academic Staff Union of Universities on Friday said the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System had failed in its implementation and called on the Federal Government to adopt an alternative system.
The National President of ASUU, Prof Abiodun Ogunyemi, made the call in Jos while handing over to the Federal Government a 1000-capacity lecture hall built by the University of Jos branch of ASUU.
Ogunyemi insisted that University Transparency and Accountability Solution developed by the union remained a better option available for the Federal Government in curbing corruption and other challenges in Nigeria’s university system.
He said, “The IPPS is not working. No much thought was given to it by the people who conceived the project. We are not surprised about its failure because all the issues that were not addressed in its implementation had earlier been raised by ASUU.
“So, we have not finished with the business of IPPS and very soon, we are going to test our own alternative because we believe that University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, is the way to go.”
The ASUU president lamented the infrastructural deficit in the nation’s institutions without much effort by government to address it.
He said, “Even the most virulent critics of ASUU cannot deny the fact that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, an offshoot of the Education Task Fund which is a product of FGN/ASUU agreement of September 1992 is what currently supports infrastructural development of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.’’
“Without exaggeration, it could be argued that over 90 per cent of new classrooms, lecture halls, office complexes, hostels and other structures in public universities in the last one and half decades were either funded by TETFund or supported with grants from Needs Assessment Intervention Fund.”
He commended the University of Jos branch of the union for adding a fresh perspective to addressing the infrastructural deficit in the institution.
Chairman of the University of Jos branch of ASUU, Dr Lazarus Maigoro, said the project worth over N63m was funded by members from their salaries as part of their contributions towards addressing the infrastructural deficit at the university.
He said “We decided to embark on this project because government has not lived up to its responsibility of funding education. The situation is so bad that it is lecturers in the university who are erroneously perceived as strike mongers and recalcitrant people that are now using their salaries to build classrooms to assist the government and students while the Nigerian public is keeping quiet.”
